Friday, February 26, 2010

Green Eggs & A Dash Of Ham

Not too long ago, I got word that my friend Dash Riprock had acquired a new backyard toy. Dash is world-renowned for his ability to take assorted dead animals and apply heat & smoke and transform them into incredibly delicious meals. What the man can do to a pig has to be tasted to be believed!

Upon hearing he'd acquired a Green Egg, as a lifetime fan of Dr. Seuss, naturally I wondered how it would do with ham.

Lo, an idea was born!

Dash has only made a single appearance so far in my assorted Photoshopperies, his debut being the Blownstar Nativity Scene. Dash was one of the first regular visitors to this blog, and the first blogger I met face-to-face.

Dash's wife was kind enough to participate in the project by sending me a hi-res pic of Dash and his Big Green Egg, and I started looking for some famous works of art that would be suitable. The green egg proved to be a PITA to try and fit into pics, but Dash & a canned ham worked out just fine! The final picture in the series is an amalgamation of all the works 'shopped into the original photo of Dash & the Big Green Egg.

So, without further ado, here's Green Eggs & A Dash Of Ham!(Click pics for larger version)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Almost There...

All The Shmoos Fat Tits For Rent!

I'm putting the finishing touches on another magnum opus of Photoshop Phoolishness. It ought to be up sometime on Friday. The more I learn about the process, the longer it takes to complete each picture. There's so much tweaking you can do, it's hard to say "Enough! It's finished"!

The other problem with learning a bit about photo-doctoring is that when you look back at some of the first 'shops posted here at Baboon Pirates, I just want to cringe. This horrible mashup of Elisson and a conehead... EWwww...

I'm also debating going back and redoing the Jimbo Fine Art series. I think they could be much better, but the humor might take a hit if they look too polished.

Anyway, stay tuned. This one ought to be pretty good, especially if you like Green Eggs and Ham!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Acting The Fool

Mo' Tales From My Yoot

Y'know, one of the things I like about the blogosphere is that you can sit there cruising through your blogroll, and out of nowhere a post comes along and smacks your skull like a sledgehammer on a big bronze bell. Serious resonation that sends memory waves echoing back & forth through the dusty recesses of your braincase...

I've been thinking about this post of Eric's for a couple of days now. It's a good post, but if you don't have time to read it, basically Eric gives a houseguest the heave-ho for being extremely inconsiderate. For those of you who don't know Eric, he's an outstanding host, and usually a reserved individual, but you really don't want to be running your yap when he's asked someone to play him a specific song on the guitar. The man's got a shovel, and he knows how to use it!

So, I read his post and I'm flung back in time to 8th grade. Ms. M***'s history class at Spring Forest Jr. High, to be specific. I made a complete ass of myself, and probably didn't realize why until I read that post of Eric's. Oh, I'm sure I could have figured it out earlier, had I recalled the episode. People are really good about "forgetting" those times where we beclowned ourself in public.

It was toward the end of the school year, and the topic was the War of Northern Aggression. Each student had to do a special project about the war. I built a huge 36" x 48" diorama of the Battle of Shiloh. I used tiny HO scale soldiers and a train depot repainted to look like the Shiloh Church, and a bunch of little trees painted with pink dots representing the Peach Orchard.

Another kid in the class named "James" was a member of the school choir, and chose as his project a rendition of popular songs of the Civil War era. I knew the kid fairly well. We were both JRR Tolkien fans and liked wargaming. He was kind of a know-it-all blowhard, but in 8th grade, who isn't?

So, there in class in front of God & everybody, unaccompanied by backing music, piano, or even someone clapping out the time, James launches into his selection of songs. I was absolutely aghast. Oh, he was a good enough singer, but I was mortified at the idea of someone just standing up there and singing alone. I was so uncomfortable at what he was doing, I just began tearing into his performance, making snide comments, rolling my eyes and generally being an immature prick, something else 8th graders are quite good at.

I was embarrassed FOR him. Looking back on it, I would have sooner bent over in church, dropped trou and shown off my shiny pink balloon knot than to stand up and sing a song in front of a group. Just the thought of doing such a thing had me squirming in my seat.

I dunno what I was trying to accomplish by being a jerkoff. Maybe if I cut up enough, he'd stop singing and I wouldn't be so uncomfortable.

8th graders don't know much about Freudian projection... What I didn't realize was that my embarrassment was not shared by James. I was more or less projecting my own fears onto his performance.

The end result was I was unceremoniously ejected from the room, had my ass tanned by Coach T**** and his big wooden paddle, and got a blistering lecture on General Assholery by James at lunch the next day.

I'd like to say that the experience cleaned out my supply of jackoffishness and assholery, but I'd be lying to you. It still pops up from time to time, usually here on the blog. I did learn to behave myself in public, though...

I can't say that Eric's boorish houseguest was hit with a case of Freudian projection, but even if it was, politely showing him the door was the proper thing to do.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Random Ramblings

Whatever Ooze That Passes Through My Noodle!

Massive drama at the office today. I have the benefit of having a ringside seat, but no involvement in the debate or the final decision making. So, armed with my teflon poncho, I'm waiting to see the fallout of a turf war that could get really ugly. One one hand, I'd be happy to see Party A break off from Party B and take charge of matters and stand on their own. OTOH, Party A is largely ineffective without the firm guidance of Party B, and are likely to step on their own dicks and mistake it for forward progress. We'll see what happens...

Mom went up in a hot air balloon today. Kudos to her and the Red Hat mob. When those greyhaired biddies decide to go out for a light lunch, they don't fuck around!

(Yes, Mom would smack me if she knew I called her a biddy!)

Excellent episode of 'Lost' last night. I had my worries after last season's finale that they wouldn't be able to pull it together and wrap things up, but if the remaining episodes are similar, it's going to be a wild-ass ride to the end!

Mixing spearmint chewing gum and black cherry seltzer water results in a taste remarkably akin to dill pickle juice. You might want to avoid that combo.

For fans of Jim Butcher's 'Dresden Files' books, his 'Codex Alera' series is shaping up to be a mighty good read. I loved the 12 books of the 'Dresden Files', but had balked at jumping into the 2nd series because the mix of sword & sorcery seemed to lean too far towards sorcery. I couldn't have been more wrong! The first novel, 'The Furies of Calderon', started out at a relatively sedate pace, but had a whiz-bang of a conclusion. The second book, 'Academ's Fury', was a roller-coaster ride set on "Eff You Up!" from start to finish. I'm about 75 pages into the 3rd book, and it's looking as good as the other two. Good characters, excellent plotting and a hell of a good time!

If you're seeking yummy treats without a lot of calories, I've been quite pleased with the jars of mixed fruit processed with Splenda. A mix of peaches, pears, pineapple and cherries, a 24 oz. jar is only 200 calories. One jar makes a great breakfast. Kroger and HEB have them under their respective house brands.

The Omnibus Driver is heading to Houston! Check out her website for the details!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Project LOLA: Day 150

If you ask me, the quickest way to lose weight is to babysit a 4 year old and a 2 year old over a weekend. They'll run you ragged...

Here we are at Day 150 of Project LOLA. A nice round number for a not-quite-so-round guy.

I pulled on my "weekend" pants (the ones that got a dose of bleach by mistake, and only get worn around the house. Tie-dye's just not hip anymore...) and had a nice surprise. Without a belt to hold them up, they slid right off my ass. I can tuck both clenched fists inside the waistband and still have wiggle room.

Walking is getting easier, too. I don't get nearly as winded as I used to, probably 'cause whatever weight I've lost over the past 5 months was the equivalent of the straw that broke the camel's back.

See, I've been overweight since 6th grade or thereabouts, but due to a shitload of exercise as an active youth and a good solid framework, I'd been able to carry it, for the most part. Oh, I was never happy about having to expend energy on exercise, but I could do a solid days labor or hike over a mountain carrying 80 lbs on my back.

The slippery slope to couch potatohood got steeper my last year of college, when I finally had a semi-working car and was no longer hiking 3-4 miles to, fro and all over campus on a daily basis. A desk job found the August after graduation sealed the deal. The exercise stopped, and the waistline ballooned.

This past year was when the writing on the wall climbed down, walked over and started smacking me on the face. I wasn't going anywhere, I wasn't getting around very well at all, and the health issues were beginning to be a PITA to deal with.

I'm still not in any kind of decent shape, far from it. This is probably the scariest time in the whole process for me, 'cause I catch myself feeling good from time to time. You know how shitty your life is when you can't remember the last time you walked outside on a sunny day and thought "Damn, I feel pretty good!"??

See, when you feel good is when you lose the will to keep doing what you were doing. Ask any doctor, and they'll tell you that's when sick people stop taking their meds, 'cause they feel better, even though they're still really ill.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet. Not for another year at a minimum, I'm guessing. So, just take up the belt a notch and drive on. There's still such a long way to go...

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Caption Contest

...And Now For Something Only Slightly Different...

Time for another Caption Contest!

I have an actual prize this time, not just some random crap from my Desk Drawer of Bizarritude.

Winner will receive a ginormous Universal Remote Control, programmable for pretty much anything expect maybe the coffee maker. It's still new in the package. It's pretty spiffy, with glow-in-the-dark buttons and you'll never lose it 'cause it's as big as a serving platter. Runs on 2 AA batteries, which might be included, IIRC.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

And The Appeal Is What, Exactly??

Mysteries Of The Modern Age

Can someone please explain why the following items seem to be so popular these days?

1) Cupcakes - I didn't much care for these even as a kid. They were like a consolation prize compared to a slice of real cake. You always got crumbs everywhere when you peeled off the paper cup, and then what are you supposed to do with the paper afterwards? We've currently got three mobile cupcake vans in town, and God knows how many boutique cupcakeries. The fact that I'm not currently eating cake or cakelike products has no bearing on this, I just fail to see the appeal.

2) Jon & Kate Gosselin - I'd hate to see 8 kids orphaned, but I can't help thinking they might be better off if that nasty harridan and the gotch-gutted hipster were eaten by rabid hyenas.

3) Keith Olbermann - This guy could walk into an arena full of douchebags having an annual douchebag convention, and they'd throw him out for being too much of a douchebag.

4) Reality Shows - The formula is simple. Step one: Put X number of people in a house. Step Two: Turn on the cameras. Step 3: PROFIT! It's a sad commentary on our modern life that instead of interacting with friends and neighbors and living our own little dramas, instead we cocoon ourselves in front of wide-screen TVs and watch booger-eatin' morons annoy each other. Jesus Christ, people. Read a book or something...

5) Premium Vodka - If you're paying $50 for a bottle of Grey Goose or Belvedere or Ketel One, you're an idiot. Tell you what, ship me your empty bottles and $40 cash, and I'll refill them with $15 Monopolowa and you'll NEVER know the difference. Look, vodka is just ethyl alcohol and water. That's all. In fact, the government insists on it. Take a look at the BATF definition.

The standard of identity for vodka was promulgated in 1949, in T.D. 5707, 1949-2 C.B. 252. The standard for vodka provided that it was neutral spirits distilled from any material at or above 190 proof, reduced to not more than 110 proof and not less than 80 proof and, after such reduction in proof, so treated as to be without distinctive character, aroma, or taste. Although no explicit definition of the term "distinctive" could be found in the hearing record, the testimony indicates that vodka is to be as tasteless and odorless as possible.

So, claiming one tastes better than another is pretty much the placebo effect in action!

6) Bluetooth Headsets - Do you have any clue how rude you're being when you're yammering away on your cell phone constantly? Why even bother sitting down at the table in the breakroom? It's not like we'll be able to talk to you. I really needed to ask a question on the way out of the office yesterday. Too bad I couldn't get a word in edgewise, 'cause the plight of your cousin's ex-wife's mother's dog's hernia was just so goddamned important you had to jabber about it all the way out to the parking lot. Hey, the world's full of people standing right next to you who might have something to say. Take that fucking gizmo out of your ear and pay attention!

7) Trendy Food - Look, I'm sure your grass-fed hormone-free lamb chop on a bed of sauteed baby zucchini blossoms with a truffle oil & Vintage port reduction drizzle and foamed balsamic/EVOO over heirloom grape tomato slices is delicious. It's also the size of a matchbox. When I leave here, I'm gonna have to go home and heat up a can of soup 'CAUSE I'M STILL $%*#&@* HUNGRY! Tastes Great, Less Filling. For $80, I want to know I've eaten!

8) Chicken Wings - Less meat than a drumstick, mostly skin & bones and more trouble to eat than boiled crabs, and even messier. Look, just roast a chicken, cut it up and toss it in the sauce. I'd prefer it that way.

9) Flashy Rims - Yeah, you're stylin' with the $2000 rims on your $750 '87 Buick Electra. The way that back end's gushing smoke, maybe you could have spent some of that cash on new spark plugs and an oil change...

10) .45 GAP - Dude, just go ahead and get a Glock chambered in .40 S&W. If your hands are too small for a real .45 ACP, you're too scared of recoil to go with the 10mm, and your masculinity is threatened by carrying the 9mm EuroPellet, you'll at least have a round that starts with ".4" and it's cheaper, too.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

When Vegetables Attack!

Got-Dam $%#&@*}% Orange, Green & Yellow Peril!

In the continuing effort to find tasty lo-cal foodstuffs with which to stuff my face, I came upon a display of dried "veggie chips" at the local market.

The brand name was Sunwell, a Chinese company. (Website is full of delightful "Engrish".) They offered bags of dried, salted & chipped sweet potatoes, green beans, onions, carrots and a mix of all four.

Despite the danger that the chips might be chock-full of melamine, lead, cadmium, internal organs of executed political prisoners and whatever else the Chinese have been caught using as additives, I decided to give them a try. After all, a whole bag of the mixed veggies only totaled 400 calories.

The result? Pretty tasty! Well, except for the green beans. They tasted like green-colored styrofoam peanuts. The sweet potato chips were very good, and the carrots weren't bad.

The onion chips, though... Oh, mama! Imagine a big chip that tastes like a Funyun, only 10 times better, and 1/10 the calories. Sweet, oniony, melt-in-your mouth, and light as a feather.

So, I plowed through most of the bag. Ate the rest as an afternoon snack.

And then, the troubles began...

See, I was also drinking three large bottles of flavored seltzer-water. The seltzer was sugar-free, but it was the carbonation and the amount of liquid that was the catalyst for the impending intestinal cataclysm.

All those dried vegetables started reconstituting, mixing with that bubbly water to form an effervescent fibrous blob that scoured through my GI tract like a snowplow.

I knew something was amiss last night at the poker party, when I just couldn't sit comfortably due to the stampeding vegetation in my gut.

I excused myself a little early, and headed home before any little surprises started working their way out. Upon arriving at the house, I dropped a deuce of standard proportions for a guy on a reduced calorie diet, and thought that would be the end of it.

Oh, no... It was just the beginning.

I got up this morning after sleeping late and went over to the local cinema to catch a matinee. (Edge of Darkness, if you must know...)

After leaving the theater, the walk back to the truck must have knocked something loose, 'cause as I unlocked the door I was nearly doubled over by gut rumblings topping 7.6 on the Richter Scale. All was not well in Colonville...

I debated going back into the theater to avail myself of the facilities, but home was a straight shot up the Beltway, no more than a mile or so distant. I could make it. Besides, you always play better at Bowl Games with home-field advantage.

I got lucky with the traffic light at the Interstate, and blew through the next one up the road as it passed through that nebulous orange state between yellow and red. There was no way I could have lasted through a long cycle...

I managed to hold the truck to the speed limit through the subdivision, but on the home stretch I left a little rubber on the pavement as I turned onto my street and slid to a stop in my driveway.

Have you ever tried to walk quickly while clenching your buttcheeks and holding your balloon knot shut by sheer force of will? I'm sure I looked like a senior citizen missing his walker that took a handful of uppers along with his Geritol.

Inside the front door I paused to lock the door, a decision that nearly caused a blowout requiring FEMA, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to deal with. A minute or so of slow breathing and laserlike focus on sphincter closure and the peristalsis was halted by enough mental concentration to bend a drawerful of teaspoons. The duckwaddle down the hall continued...

The last few seconds were nip & tuck, or rather, strip and untuck, followed by a scene not too dissimilar from when the Apollo 11 lunar lander made its final approach, main exhaust spewing even before touchdown was complete.

Vegetation and carbonation formed a pretty strong thrust, but luckily I'd installed a tall & wide ADA-compliant throne several years back, and the industrial-strength thundermug was up to the task of reining in the explosion.

So, heed my warning, buoys and gulls! Limit your servings of dried vegetable chips to no more than a handful or two, lest ye suffer the consequences!!

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Thoisday Cyootie

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Taxing Drudgery

I Owe, I Owe, So Off To Work I Go!

I should have been finished with my taxes by now...

Anyone know what this "Make Work Pay" tax credit is all about? I'm pretty sure I did the formula right, and it doesn't change a thing for me. Still, I hate to goof up on something simple and inadvertently trigger the deep-core colonoscopy of an IRS audit.

Well, it shouldn't matter too much. It's not like I'm getting any money back this year, anyway...

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Get Lost!

Tonight's the season premiere of 'Lost'. I will be occupied from 7p-10p CST!

If the phone rings, I will not answer! If the doorbell rings, it damn well better be during a commercial break, otherwise I will remove your arm forcibly and beat you about the head with the wet end!

I only watch one show on TV, and this is it. So, with all due respect, bugger off on Tuesday nights for the next few months!

Thanks!

10 P.M. UPDATE:Man, those are some sadistic bastards that write for 'Lost'... You spend a year saying "NO!!!! (Redacted) can't be dead!!!", then you learn to live with it. Then, (Redacted) IS ALIVE!! Hooray!! Oh, wait, no they're not. Sorry! *grumblegrumblegrumble*...

Monday, February 01, 2010

Drinking Shitty Coffee

I'll Try Anything Twice...

This was a weekend of Firsts...

First time to play Armed Assault (ArmA). It's a PC First Person Shooter game. Fairly detailed, and the game maps are frikkin' HUGE! One map we played on was 4 kilometers wide and 3 KM tall. How do I know? 'Cause when you respawn across the map, it takes forever to "run" to get back to the action. We resorted to carpooling, where one guy would commandeer a vehicle and drive around picking people up.

Gameplay of ArmA is fun, but a bit spotty in places. The mapping feature was glitchy, and the ballistics model somewhat suspect. OTOH, it was a blast driving a Russian BMP full throttle down a mountainside and knocking trees over, and on one map I was sniping at my friends from a hilltop with a 57mm artillery piece. Nothing says love like direct HE fire on their vehicles!

We got in a couple of rounds of Command & Conquer and several sessions of Quake Wars, which I'd like to play more of. I hadn't played Quake since Q3:Arena way back when...

I also had my first cup of Kopi Luwak, the infamous Indonesian weasel-poop coffee. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, and I couldn't tell the difference between this stuff and Folger's Instant, to be honest.

Had a couple of bottles of Shiner Fröst for the first time. The label says it's a "Dortmunder Style beer". I don't know Dortmunder Bier from Dorothy Gale, but it was a pretty damned tasty brew. Not too hoppy, with a hint of sweetness to it. It's well worth your time searching for this beer!

Not a lot of sleep over the weekend with all the gaming, capped off with a visit from my sister's rugrats on Sunday, who find that jumping on Uncle Cap is the height of amusement. I'm about ready for a nap...